Written: 26 January, 1954, first published in SWP Discussion Bulletin Volume XVI, A 16, 1954.
Source: Struggle in the Fourth International, International Committee Documents 1951-1954, Volume 4 of 4, pages 221-222, from the collection “Toward A History of the Fourth International”, Part 3. Education for Socialists bulletin; issued by the National Education Department of the Socialist Workers Party (US). March 1974. [Goonewardene was Secretary of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, the Ceylonese section of the Fourth International.]
Transcription\HTML Markup: David Walters
Pubic Domain: This work in the Public Domain. Please cite the James P. Cannon Internet Archive, a sub-Archive of the Marxists Internet Archive for credit.
Ceylon
January 26, 1954
Dear Comrade Cannon,
I placed your letter of December 16 before the Politbureau and the Central Committee of the party and this reply is in accordance with their instructions.
At the time your letter arrived here, the CC had already adopted a resolution regarding the publication of the “Letter to All Trotskyists” in The Militant of November 16. I enclose a copy of the resolution. It was forwarded by us to the IS on December 22, 1953.
I would stress that this resolution was adopted only after prolonged discussion and the most earnest consideration because we could not doubt that the National Committee of the SWP would not have taken so grave a step except for the most deep going considerations. Nevertheless, and after the further consideration we have given to the matter in the light of your enclosures, we see no reason to alter the position taken in our resolution.
It' is also our considered opinion that the step taken by the U.S.A., British and Swiss majorities in setting up a Provisional Committee to summon a World Congress of the Fourth International is likely to be catastrophic to our movement as a whole We understand the documents issued by this Provisional Committee to mean that they are working towards a separate and rival World Congress. If this should happen, the consequences are incalculable. It may well disable the world forces of Trotskyism decisively in a decisive period of world history.
However, we do not wish to leave these matters at the point of merely expressing our considered opinion about them to you. The situation itself is too grave for that Besides, our long course of intimate collaboration, the deep respect and unqualified comradeship we have always had towards you and your colleagues, and the impression that our regard for the National Committee of the SWP is not wholly un returned, persuade us to the belief that our directly addressing you on these matters may yet serve the purpose of preventing the permanent breach in World Trotskyism's forces which seems now to loom before us.
We address you on the footing that we have not yet taken a position on the political issues which have arisen. We have been awaiting sufficient material and have also to complete a full discussion before we take a position on those issues. But we address you also on the footing that the political differences which exist, however deep going they may be, require first of all to be thrashed out within our movement and fought out at the coming World Congress.
May we appeal to you even at this stage to stay the course taken of attacking publicly the very motivation of the duly elected official World Centre of the International. May we also appeal to you to use your every effort and influence with those concerned to prevent them heading towards a separate Congress in rivalry and hostility to the officially planned Congress. May we appeal to you further to cooperate in making the officially planned World Congress as fully representative as possible of the various trends in our movement so that all these trends can join together in discussion of all issues with a view to a considered and democratic decision. In particular, may we earnestly plead with you to persuade the U. S. A, British and Swiss majorities, and those associated with them elsewhere in the working of the Provisional Committee to come into the officially planned Congress and to fight the battle there, thus rendering a full scale battle on those issues, with all sides drawn up in full force and array, possible at the official World Congress.
We would add that if there is any manner in which our good offices can serve in ensuring a single World Congress in which the entire forces of World Trotskyism will be represented, we would be only too happy to make ourselves available in that behalf. We believe, that coming together for discussion and democratic decision in a single World Congress is the only way to ensure that those who have marched shoulder to shoulder so long and in such difficult circumstances shall continue to march shoulder to shoulder in order to take the fullest advantage of the new and unprecedented opportunities which are opening up on a world scale for Trotskyism, its programme, its ideas and its organizations. It seems to us from the latest communications of the IEC that it should be possible to arrange for representation at the Congress to be accorded to all Trotskyist tendencies which are ready to come in on the basis of willingness to accept the Congress decisions. May we therefore ask you what you have to say thereon and whether there is any manner in which we can assist to bring into the World Congress comrades and organizations whom the movement has so long held in the highest comradeship, to whom the movement owes so deep a debt, and whom the FT can ill afford to lose.
In respect of your inquiry about the Ceylon party, we fear that you have been misinformed about the relations with the IS of the group which split away. We enclose a statement released by us in regard to that matter, which is in the form of a reply to certain statements in La Verite.
As far as we know, the pro Stalinist faction has gone out of the party completely. The party is united as never before, ideologically and organizationally; is getting again into fighting trim, is studying hard and working hard; and is in no mood to tolerate anything pro Stalinist within its ranks, either open or covert We are being assisted in our recovery from the faction fight and split by dissensions in both wings of local Stalinism, dissensions which have broken out into the open recently. I think we can say that, although we do not under estimate the difficulties of the fight against Stalinism, we are confident of victory against them in the struggle for our continued leadership of the mass movement in Ceylon.
Yours fraternally,
Leslie Goonewardene,
Secretary
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